However, Adrian, forcibly holding onto a thread of hope, carefully asked.

“And?”

“Is there more?”

“…I wonder what I’m going to do with you.”

Though afraid, Adrian pressed the key point as it had to be confirmed. At that, Layla lowered her eyes.

Adrian, impatient when she didn’t provide an answer, pressed again.

“What do you think I’m going to do?”

Then Layla clasped her hands together as she usually did when tense. Words tinged with anxiety flowed from her lips.

“I don’t care what you do with me……”

Whether killing her for revenge, or discarding her useless self somewhere.

If anyone had the right to do such things to Layla, it was Adrian.

Because she thought the opposite of Adrian, the words that next flowed from her lips were, of course, nonsense from Adrian’s perspective.

Not just nonsense. It was utter rubbish.

“Please end your grudge against the Wessex family with me.”

Adrian’s hand tightly clenched into a fist. He drew in a sharp breath.

Though on the verge of losing his mind, he asked one last question.

“Then why did you sleep with me?”

Though he knew he might go mad if he didn’t get the answer he wanted, this was something he had to confirm no matter what.

And as if on cue, another piece of utter rubbish came back in response.

“Because… Your Highness wanted it, didn’t you?”

Unable to endure any longer, Adrian abruptly stood up. Startled, Layla looked up at him, but Adrian had no time to pay her any attention.

No longer able to remain in the same space as Layla, he flung open the door with his own hand and stormed out.

Maeve and Bryan, who had been waiting outside, seemed startled by his sudden emergence. They only realized the situation and followed after Adrian had already started moving, but his long strides down the stairs were much faster.

His face pale, Adrian felt an extreme dizziness as he frantically returned to his room on the second floor.

Once again unable to wait for someone to open it for him, he pushed open the door with his own hand. Immediately, the bed in the center with its snow-white sheets caught his eye.

The sound of his and Layla’s conversation in this room rang in his ears like tinnitus.

Adrian still vividly remembered what happened after that.

Those white sheets had been soaked with her red blood. Because he had taken Layla’s first time.

And it had been his first time as well.

Adrian felt his vision blur and his nose sting at the same time. Unable to approach the bed, he stepped back towards the door.

“No……”

There’s no way Layla could have…

She had nodded at his words about trusting him, there’s no way that wasn’t sincere.

Adrian naturally assumed she understood this relationship. Himself, who couldn’t be honest in front of others…

The Crown Prince of Hankin must be flawless. Otherwise, who knows when someone might try to tear him apart.

So he absolutely could not outwardly show his feelings for Layla. Not because she was his weakness. But because she would get hurt if people knew she was his precious person.

Above all, there was no way their current relationship could be accepted by anyone.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t love her at all. Adrian had never even considered using Layla.

Why would he think of restoring the Wessex family, who were like enemies? It was all because of Layla.

If not for her, he would never have made such a crazy decision.

What blind Crown Prince would try to raise the status of a family that had already once betrayed Hankin and nearly driven him to death?

He simply wanted to make Layla a more precious person. Truly, there was no meaning beyond or below that.

He could swear to the heavens that he made no political calculations in front of her.

But he realized from their conversation just now.

Layla didn’t believe in him like that.

Not at all, not even a little.

In his miserable state of mind, Adrian covered his face with both hands. His fingers dug into his hair.

His head, which had been crushed by extreme headaches recently, was pressed by his fingertips. Adrian’s body, leaning against the door, slid down helplessly.

He shuddered at the terrible reality.

‘What on earth have I been deluding myself about……’

He thought Layla had given herself to him because she liked him, loved him.

But that wasn’t it.

It was just a sense of duty. And the duty of a slave who had entered the Crown Prince’s palace at that…

Just as he had thought once before, he was just the same as Reynold Filmer to Layla.

That disgusting trash.

Adrian blankly stared at the canopied bed through the gaps in his hands. Immediately, the moment when he had joined bodies with Layla vividly flashed through his mind.

Feeling like he might collapse at any moment from the dizziness, Adrian steadied himself on the floor with trembling hands. It was when he bent his waist.

“Ugh……”

Extreme disgust brought on a bout of nausea.

Adrian’s office.

As usual, Bryan was standing by, and Adrian was looking over documents with his usual flawless, neat face.

“……”

However, Lilburn couldn’t tease or make joking remarks to Adrian as he usually did.

It was because of the strangely frozen atmosphere. Adrian even gave off a strange killing intent.

When Lilburn gave Bryan a look asking what was going on, Bryan simply bowed his head.

There were some guesses, but it clearly wasn’t the situation to speak of them now.

After receiving Lilburn’s morning report on the political situation of neighboring countries, Adrian abruptly asked a question.

“Have you planted a spy who can contact Cedric?”

“I was actually going to tell you, but since the number of people who can contact Cedric is so limited, it’s going to take some time……”

“It’s going to take time?”

“……”

At Adrian’s interruption and question, Lilburn put his hands behind his back. One wrong word and it seemed he would be severely nitpicked.

At times like this, he wanted to shout for Adrian to just do it himself, but Lilburn knew that if he did, Adrian would just recite a string of correct answers, so he didn’t make excuses.

“I’ll proceed as quickly as possible.”

“Within a week.”

“…Yes.”

He wondered if he should change his appearance and infiltrate himself at this rate.

But unless he was a teleporter, it would take at least ten days to get to Fitzroy.

As Lilburn was having such pointless thoughts, Adrian continued speaking.

“And that 4th Prince bastard.”

Judging by the curse attached at the end, it seemed Adrian had decided to deal with him.

Adrian’s purple eyes pierced through Lilburn with a fierce gaze.

“Take back all the trade rights we gave to his maternal family.”

Understanding that he was angry because of Layla, but thinking it was a somewhat emotional decision, Lilburn carefully offered a word.

“Won’t the Empress plead with His Majesty the Emperor?”

“Does it matter?”

“…Not at all.”

Sensing Lilburn’s hesitation despite his words, Adrian smirked slightly, then leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

“His Majesty won’t listen anyway, so she’ll come to me. I’d rather be grateful if the Empress throws a fit at me. The 4th Prince will also have time to prove his value that he hasn’t shown so far.”

“If it’s about proving value……”

“It’s been about two months since he left for Filmer, right? Since he’s so busy after returning after a long time, it would be nice if he could do something in my place. Here, this is perfect as a test.”

Adrian opened one page of the report Lilburn had submitted today and tossed it to the front of the desk. Lilburn walked over to check it and thought that the 4th Prince had really gotten into trouble.

The page that was opened contained information about a monster wave that had broken out in the southern part of Hankin.

It said that a few wyverns were mixed in with a horde of ogres. Ogres, while not very intelligent, are monsters more than ten times the size of humans, and because their physical strength is strong, that alone is sufficiently threatening.

But this wave was reportedly led by an ogre with three heads.

Interestingly, an ogre’s intelligence was proportional to the number of its heads. If it had two heads, it was generally thought to have about human-level intelligence. But even two-headed ogres were rare.

But three.

There was a high possibility it would be smarter than humans.

“……”

He had reported this thinking Adrian might need to step in himself, but Adrian didn’t seem to have any such thoughts yet.

“If he overstepped my authority, he should prove he has skills on par with mine. Don’t you think?”

Lilburn realized that the 4th Prince had properly gotten on this bad man’s bad side.